Mistakenness Revisited

I actually didn't give it much thought, but "one" already takes it out of the second person into the third, so it's already general.

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This is obviously an extremely important question and I don't think it can be answered all at once--the answer will be determined within disciplinary spaces. But what I think those within those spaces will be looking for is the replacement of intrsinically divisive concepts with concepts that propose an order oriented toward a center. Think about how we would have to talk about social situations and decisions if we eliminated all the post-ritual, secular concepts: the common good, popular will, the greatest good of the greatest number, the protection of rights (or liberties), fairness, equality, etc. How would we actually talk about things in that case? I think there are two possibilities: one, a reversion to talking about social relations in terms of sheer force (but that's not really possible--loyalty would be the guiding concept of a pre-liberal order); two, we would have reports from people situated in specific places within institutions; these reports would regard how certain delegations of power have been carried out; and among those delegations would be those concerned with the maintenance of the institution, i.e., educating people or "contracting" with educational institutions. Now, this will never go completely according to plan--there will be mistakes and anomalies. The real test will be whether the causes of those mistakes and anomalies are represented as being intrinsic or extrinsic to the institution. Positing extrinsic causes, like the incompetence, greed, ambition, etc., of individual members directs attention away from everything in the institution that allowed those causes to persist and have visible effects. The implication is that expulsion loves the problem. If you represent the causes as intrinsic, then you are representing them as genuine anomalies--i.e., they have emerged from the practices of the institution itself, and addressing them will re-discipiline the institution. Now, it is of course possible to write up a report that represents causes as intrinsic, with lots of "we failed to..." and "we need to do x or y" type of language. If you signal to people that intrinsic causes are more "legitimate" ones, they will find ways to frame them in that way. Of course, that might be a first step to actually thinking in that way; but this also means that someone else will have to determine if genuine anomalies are being identified. After insisting on intrinsic rather than extrinsic causes, you would then, that is, have to distinguish between more and less differentiated attributions of causality. To say something like "we weren't alert enough" is really just to posit an extrinsic cause, while spreading it around (even though, clearly, everyone couldn't have been equally lacking in alertness). You'd have to point to someone at a post dealing with a new situation that was revealing in some way--and that's where the naming enters into it. .

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Accepting it means constructing a space around it, rather than trying to excise it; knowing to accept means already having participated in such spaces.

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It's a discovery procedure for revealing the center, or hearing imperatives from the center. "Ideology" is a systematic formulation of one or more of those inherently divisive concepts: an ideology extracts and systematizes a particular set of imperatives derived from concepts like "freedom," the "common good," and so on. This divides the world into pro-freedom and anti-freedom agents; those who support the common good vs those who defend their own selfish interests. You can do this only by presupposing adequate implementation of a model (the freedom loving or civic minded citizen), against which deviations can be measured. The way I speak about mistakenness in this post is in terms of a discrepancy between model and aspirant. If what is being modeled is most importantly the deferral of violence, the discrepancy revealed is always an incitement to violence, even though not intended as such. Treating this discrepancy as mistakenness rather than oppositional generates a new center that can be named, and this naming can be attributed to the central authority. So, rather than arguments over the forces of freedom vs. the forces of tyranny, or defenders of the common good vs. special interests, we have competing ways of taking some disruption or interruption as an occasion for further enhancing by differentiating the deferral power of the center.

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Yes, but the model is a person leading others, not a construct abstracted from any person (and therefore presumably applicable to all).

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Yes, once the abstractions are possible, and we have to argue with others or examine contending models, we have to use them. So, we could say that "follow a person rather than a principle" is just as abstract (and therefore bureaucratic, ideological, etc.) as "follow principles rather than persons." The very structure of the question you pose draws on an implicit comparison, which involves an abstraction. Obviously, such questions are inevitable, and part of what we're doing here is testing out possible responses to them. Getting into the argument on this abstract level perpetuates the ideological structure: it presupposes a disciplinary space in which we're examining and comparing models that are presented as universally applicable, so we have to choose one or the other. So, rather than get into such arguments, we should work on the paradox of words like "person" which, because they can refer to *anyone* can refer to *everyone*. Even if we wanted to get more specific and try something like "follow the this person-to-whom-you-are-bound-by common-pacttices-and-tradtions-and-tacit-understandings, etc." it would still be just as abstract. The problem "we" have in resisting abstractions is matched by the problem "they" have in describing and adhering to a principle in such a way that doesn't involve taking individuals, in specific historical circumstances, as models. So, we can keep talking, but in a less sterile way (because we're now talking about what we actually do, even now as we're having this conversation)--in a way that doesn't involve just trying to catch the other in contradictions. It comes down to different ways of talking about things (we get caught up in the abstractions because we want to talk to people): on the one hand, the question is, "is the king acting justly"; on the other hand, the question is, "how am I helping the king maintain the realm"? "We" have to show that "is the king acting justly" only makes sense if "translated" into the other sentence (this is a much more productive discussion, at any rate). To take another example, think abut the difference between asking a student to write a "well reasoned essay," on the one hand, and asking that student to "imitate" another essay (presumably one the teacher considers "well reasoned"). A teacher cannot make present to the student all the "elements" of a "well reasoned" essay, and how those elements must be articulated, in advance of having the student write it, so the teacher's response to the student will be mostly pointing to things in the essay that are less than "well reasoned" according to criteria the teacher can never adequately "formalize." (Or, the teacher can say "great job!," in which case the student also learns nothing.) If you ask the student to imitate, it's possible to go back and forth between the student paper and the model, asking how one thing in the essay is being imitated by the student, asking the student to explain how he takes this part of his paper to be an imitation, etc. In other words, we get a much more ostensive-rich environment.